Quiet Days
by Totally Tampons
Summary: One Shot, Animated Quiet days are a luxury for the Autobots. Too bad that the day won't be too quiet, because Bumblebee's off on a witch hunt to find out who rearranged his meticulously-categorized Great War Heroes figures.


It's always a dramatic feat when somebody manages to kick open a door and stand in it angrily, especially if they're backlit, and it's perhaps even more impressive if the door-kicker is short, because that means that they're _really_ angry, and boy, is somebody in trouble now. Such was the effect for Bumblebee, who looked like he was ready to take jump-shot in order to punch someone in the face.

"Alright! Who did it!?"

There was no small amount of crime in the city of Detroit, and the Autobot team, stranded as they were, had learned to take the quiet days as a blessing when they could simply relax and go about their own business for a while, instead of mucking about in someone else's. It looked as if this probably wasn't going to be a quiet day, after all.

"What are you on about?" Prowl asked, staring at his teammate like he was a small, yapping yellow dog.

"I want to know who's responsible for this!"

"For what?" Ratchet shouted from down the hall. "Primus, I can hear you from down here!"

"_Some_body," Bumblebee fumed, "he committed a great injustice to my name. And I want to know who it is! Now!"

Optimus Prime had learned a great many things, having been a student of the prestigious Autobot Academy (which is prestigious by merit of being an academy, as all academies are prestigious, otherwise, who would ever go?), but they were what Ratchet had referred to as "book learnings," and he supposed that was meant to suggest that he'd need to pad that out with real-life experience. Fortunately, being leader of this crew meant that he had gotten more than enough practice at conflict resolution: more than a lifetime's worth, probably, which was fortunate because he was already on Life Number Two. "Okay Bumblebee, just calm down and tell me what happened," he said, holding his hands up.

"Some unknown vandal has put their grimy, criminal paws on my personal property!"

"Okay, calm down." Optimus Prime had to be sure of what he was hearing. "You're upset because somebody touched your stuff?"

"They did not _touch_ my _stuff_," Bumblebee seethed, as if that was an insult to the magnitude of the situation at hand. "They rearranged my collection of Great War Heroes figures! I spent a week categorizing them by faction, rank, and unit! Do you have any idea how many of those things I have!? It's going to take me forever to get them back into order! Whoever it was even threw the doubles in there! The doubles!"

As Bumblebee continued shouting at Optimus Prime, Prowl turned from where he sat and stared at Bumblebee with an expression of deadpan shock. Prowl was the only Autobot who could have ever mastered such a feat, and only because all of his expressions involve at least being partially deadpan. As far as the Autobots were concerned, it was in his nature.

"You disturbed the peace and quiet," he said slowly, like he was trying to wrap his CPU around the idea, "because somebody touched your_ action figures?_"

Bumblebee jerked around and stared at him with an expression that probably would have better befitted a homing missile. "It was you, wasn't it!? You did it!" He stormed over to Prowl and loomed over where the black-and-gold Autobot sat. "You probably snuck into my room with your stupid ninja skills and rearranged them while I slept!"

"That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard," Prowl said, turning back to the TV. "Why would I ever want to invest the effort to sneak into your quarters while you're in them and rearrange some stupid toys?"

"Maybe it's because I'm fast and cool and popular, and you're not! Jealous! Jealous!"

"Absurd. I'm very popular," Prowl replied.

"Uh, yeah, with teenage girls. Who wants to be popular with _them?_"

Off in the distance, the disembodied voice of Ratchet started laughing. Bumblebee went right back to fuming. "It's not funny! It's not! And I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

"Please relax," Optimus groaned. "Maybe it's nothing. Maybe Sari just saw them and played with them, and forgot to put them back."

"No way. They're up too high for her to get to. It was somebody in this base, and I am going to find out who!" And without another word, he stormed off and left everyone to their perplexed shrugging.

"Bulkhead!"

It should be known right here that Bulkhead didn't do it: for starters, stealth isn't Bulkhead's forte. But more importantly, he'd spent the entire day outside, laying on his stomach in the sun and oblivious to the drama unfolding indoors.

"Oh, hey Bumblebee!" He waved to his friend, unaware that he was essentially waving to an angry yellow wolverine. "What's up?"

"Did you touch my stuff?"

"What? No."

"Somebody did! My Great War Heroes collection has been moved around. Just be honest with me. Did you touch them?"

"I'm being honest with you, Bumblebee. I haven't even been inside all day."

Bumblebee paused. "…You haven't," he said, realizing that Bulkhead was right. "What have you been doing outside all day?"

"I've been watching turtles!" He said, and gleefully pointed to the small reptiles. "I've been laying like this so I don't accidentally step on one. Aren't they cute?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. You keep doing that then, buddy," Bumblebee said, and dashed off inside, leaving Bulkhead to his ponderous brethren. If it wasn't Bulkhead, then who else could it be?

"Ratchet!" He said, zipping into the med bay and staring up at the grizzled old soldier who stared down at him with the stature of a looming bear. He set aside a rather large and heavy-looking wrench that he'd been cleaning.

"Yes?"

"…Never mind," Bumblebee answered, and backed away, still staring at the wrench, which looked like it was very capable of leaving a sizeable dent in the head of anyone who'd get the silly idea of accusing Ratchet of childish pranks. Ratchet shrugged and went back to his work, humming as he did so.

"Still no luck?" Prime asked, biting back any amusement at Bumblebee's witch hunt.

"Someone did it!" He crowed. "I am going to find out who."

"Would you mind keeping it down?" Prowl asked pointedly. "Some of us are paying attention to important things."

"Clam up, you're just watching some dumb show about butterflies."

"It is about _metamorphosis_."

"Whatever." Bumblebee dismissed his rebuttal with a wave of his hand. "Anyway, I got a good idea," he said to Prime, scooting over next to his leader with an air of secrecy. "I'm going to put the Great War Heroes back, see? And then I'll talk about how long it took me, and be really loud about it, so whoever did it will totally want to do it again. And then before I head off to recharge, I'll set up the motion detectors by my room and rig them to an alarm. Nobody will be able to get by them!"

"That's a… good plan," Prime said. "Just don't hurt anybody, okay? Including yourself. Be careful."

"Psh. Careful? I'm always careful! Since when have I not been careful?" He asked, and ran off to put his plan into action. Prime just sighed and stared up at the ceiling. Did any of the other heroes have to put up with this?

* * *

"I—don't—_believe_ it!" 

It looked like the next day wasn't going to be very quiet, either.

"How could this happen? There is no way this could have happened!" Bumblebee crowed. "My plan failed!"

"Y'mean your oh-so-sneaky plot to set up the motion sensors around your room and try and lure your antagonist friend there in the hopes of catching him?" Ratchet asked, not looking up from the news on the TV.

"What? How did you know?" Bumblebee asked. "Did Optimus tell you!?"

"Kid, you're acting like it was tough to figure out."

"But they got rearranged!" Bumblebee protested. "Again! Again! Right next to me, while I slept!"

"Wasn't that your plan in the first place?"

"It wasn't my plan for it to _not work! _How do you get past motion sensors!?" Bumblebee shrieked. "They're motion sensors! They sense _motion!_ That's their _thing!_" Bumblebee grabbed the horn-like projections on his head and reeled around melodramatically before hurling himself onto the floor next to Ratchet. "Move over! I want to see if there's some kind of crazy person on the loose who's been visiting other people's houses and rearranging their things!" Then, he paused for a second, looking about with confusion. "Say, where's Prowl? Isn't he usually watching this boring stuff, too?"

"Prowl is off at the park," Ratchet said, irritated. "And he's probably enjoying some blasted peace and quiet, since there's obviously none of it around here!"

Prowl was indeed at the park. Prowl was at the park, up in a tree and safely hidden from the humans and their cameras, because no one could ever see how hard he was smirking, lest he blow his cover and have Bumblebee catch on to the fact that it was him. It was true that he'd shared his battle tactics with his fellow Autobots, and taught them stealth and stillness in his typical stiff upper lip style, but there was one secret he was never going to divulge to anyone. True warriors of stealth always wore a mask, even around their friends and fellows, because that meant when you let it slip and indulged in one of the simpler pleasures of life (tormenting your highly-strung teammate, in this case), no one ever suspected that it was you.

Oh yes, it was going to be such a lovely, quiet day at the park.


End file.
